


Adventures of the Daemon Slayer

by yodepalma



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Cor is a troll, Crack, Gen, I Don't Even Know, Iris is a BAMF, Violence, World of Ruin
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-28
Updated: 2017-06-01
Packaged: 2018-11-06 01:26:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11025690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yodepalma/pseuds/yodepalma
Summary: Iris wants to blow everything up. Cor is justtired.ORNothing is quite as terrifying as hunting with Iris Amicitia.





	1. fist of danger

**Author's Note:**

> this one is also entirely rhymeswithpi's fault >[ (Ze decided WoR!Iris would have proper throwing weapons like bombs and stuff. I rolled with it.)
> 
> Chapter titles are basically meant to be fake action movie names, because I'm easily entertained.

“No, don’t!” Cor yells, but Iris ignores him like always. He has to shield his face from the light that explodes from whatever she threw in between the two red giants, and honestly he’s just faintly surprised there wasn’t an actual fiery explosion.

Iris’ bubbling laughter floats back to him. “That was _awesome_!” she cries, clapping her hands together gleefully. “Cor, did you see that?”

“I can’t see _anything_ ,” Cor yells back. This is worse than following Gladio around on Gilgamesh’s trial. At least Gladio isn’t cheerfully, terrifyingly _fucking insane._ “Where did you even get that thing?”

“Oh, hold on a second.” Cor blinks until his eyes clear, and when he looks up he sees Iris holding a daemon like a bat as an ice bomb flies straight at her.

“Iris, _no_!” Cor yells, but it’s too late. Iris swings her makeshift weapon with enough force that the bomb zips toward one of the red giants. It starts to grow in a distressingly familiar way. Cor rushes forward and drags Iris to the ground just before it explodes. The red giant is coated in ice, but so is everything around it, and Cor swears as he feels a couple shards land on the back of his neck. “Gods be damned, Iris!”

Iris giggles nervously as he gets up and yanks her back to her feet. “I don’t think I’m going to try that one again,” she says, which is the first sensible thing she’s uttered all day. Night. Whatever time period they’re in right now; Cor lost track _weeks_ ago. Around the time he started bringing Iris out to kill daemons with him, in fact.

Clarus must be watching him from the afterlife and cackling. He’d spent enough time chasing after Cor’s dumb ass back in the day that he’d think this was just karma finally catching up.

The red giant recovers from being frozen far too quickly, and Iris wriggles out of his grip as the gigantic sword comes swinging down toward them. Cor throws himself to the side, barely managing to avoid being crushed, and immediately looks around for Iris.

She’s fine. Of course she is. And she’s hefting another vaguely explosive-looking thing in one hand, a grin on her face as she eyes up the giant.

Cor doesn’t even have the energy to yell any more. He clears the area so fast he almost trips over himself, and the _second_ he’s out of range, something explodes against the red giant’s chest. It doesn’t recover before there’s a second explosion, and then a third, and then it sinks down to the ground, defeated.

Iris does a cute little victory dance that has her spinning toward the other red giant with another explosive in her hand. Cor rubs a hand down his face and stumbles over to a conveniently close boulder, watching as Iris single-handedly takes out three ice bombs at once with some sort of incendiary. Cor isn’t even certain she _needs_ his help at this point. All _he_ seems to manage to do is chase after a teenager who doesn’t listen to half of what he says.

Cor’s getting too old for this shit. When they get to Lestallum, he’s foisting Iris off on her brother and seeing if he can get Ignis to start fighting again. At least that boy has some damn sense in his head.


	2. fist of retribution

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Iris will beat a motherfucker with another motherfucker.

_Shit_ , Gladio thinks to himself as the daemon removes its sword, his hand automatically moving to cover the wound on his shoulder. The damn thing managed to get his sword arm, because of _course_ it did, and now Gladio’s off-hand is covered in blood. He banishes his own sword back to the Armiger to replace it with a shield, which he uses to block the next swing.

“ _Gladdy!_ ” Iris screams as his knee gives out from the force of the blow. He has to block one more swing before she appears out of the darkness like an avenging angel, her hands held high above her head as she swings—is that an _imp_? She’s beating a daemon with another daemon. What the fuck. Who taught her to do that?

“Dammit, not again,” Cor growls, kneeling beside Gladio and breaking a potion over his shoulder. “She needs to stop doing this shit.”

“Does she do it often?” Gladio asks, stretching his arm out and grimacing at the slight tug of healing skin. It’s the first time he’s actually been out hunting with his sister since the sun stopped rising.

“Last time the thing woke up mid-swing.” Cor helps Gladio to his feet. “She let go of one leg and punched it in the face.”

Gladio’s impressed. He’s pretty sure this is crazier than his habit of picking up random pieces of ruins and beating monsters to death with them. “Remind me to get her a sundae when we get back to town.”

Cor sighs, the most tired and put-upon noise Gladio has ever heard.

“Gladdy, are you okay?” Iris calls, dropping her improvised weapon and running over to him. She pats at his arm and hovers next to him, her eyes wide with worry. “I’m sorry I didn’t get there before it stabbed you, there was a stupid bomb in my way.”

Gladio grins and ruffles her hair. “You did great, kid. I’m proud of you.”

Iris beams up at him, both of them completely ignoring Cor’s frustrated groan.

“What the fuck just happened?” a voice asks from behind Gladio, and they all turn to see the rest of the hunters huddled together next to the disappearing corpses of several more bombs.

“I didn’t know we were traveling _with_ a daemon,” somebody else mutters.

Iris puts her hands on her hips and glares them all down. “Well, I wouldn’t _have_ to beat daemons up like that if any of you knew how to watch each other’s backs!” She points a finger at someone and he flinches like he thinks she’s going to kill him. “Do better or next time I’m going to beat the daemon with _you_.”

The man she’s yelling at is as tall as Ignis, but he looks like he believes Iris _could_ pick him up and swing him around. He nods jerkily and tries to hide behind the woman standing next to him. She rolls her eyes and walks away.

“Let’s get back to Lestallum,” Cor says, putting a hand on Iris’ shoulder and scowling down at her. “And we’re going to talk about this habit of yours. _Again_.”


	3. fist of spiracorn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The rumors about Iris are really starting to get out of hand.

Cor pauses outside the kitchen door, scowling as he hears voices. His internal clock must still be off; he’d been sure it was too early for anyone to be getting breakfast. All he’d wanted was a piece of fruit and some quiet. Was that too much to ask for?

He almost turns away to sulk in his room again, but he draws up short when he hears one of the men say, “Dude, have you heard the latest story about Daemon Slayer Iris?”

Cor blinks slowly and leans a little closer to the door. ‘Daemon Slayer’, is it? He wonders if Iris has heard that particular moniker yet; it must make her proud.

“She took out five fucking red giants,” the man says. “By _herself_! With a bunch of damn bombs that Prompto kid’s been mixing up for her.”

Cor’s pretty sure he knows what he’s talking about, although it’d actually been one red giant and a handful of arachnes this time. And he’d been there too. He was _always_ there, watching Iris’ back so she didn’t get herself killed doing something stupid.

Still, it’s a great rumor. Cor doesn’t let himself think too much before he walks into the room, heading straight for the bowl of fruit on display in the center of the table. He picks up an apple and bites into it, eyeing the two young hunters thoughtfully.

“Hey, Marshall,” one of them says. “You hunt with the Daemon Slayer, don’t you?”

Cor nods, taking another deliberate bite out of his apple and chewing slowly. The hunters share a look.

“You, uh, know anything about the red giants?” the same hunter says. Both of them look at him with glinting eyes, clearly expecting him to say it’s all a lie.

“I was there,” Cor says instead. “Iris is a good kid.”

He takes another bite of the apple. The talkative hunter gulps nervously as his friend nudges him.

“So, uh. It’s true then?”

Cor doesn’t give any indication that it’s _not_. “Those bombs make my ears ring,” he mutters. He takes his eyes off the hunter and frowns at his apple. The fruit from the city gardens isn’t as sweet as he remembers fruit being. “And I still haven’t figured out how she’s protecting her eyes from the flash bombs.”

When he looks up again, the hunters look utterly terrified. It’s hard not to smirk at their horror, so he distracts himself with the fruit bowl again. He grabs another apple and inspects it, hoping to figure out what’s changed to make them so flavorless, but they look like any apple he’s ever eaten before. Oh well.

“You boys have a good day,” Cor says, taking both of the apples and leaving. He hopes this rumor spreads fast. He’s looking forward to hearing what Gladio has to say about his younger sister’s rumored antics.


	4. fist of fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aranea goes to Lestallum to check on some rumors, and she’s more than pleased by what she finds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tossed this out in a half hour and I have no memory whatsoever of what I wrote.
> 
> I didn't really do much by way of editing so sorry if it's a little stilted. Maybe one day i'll come back and fix things, who knows?

She’s drawn to Lucis by the rumors of someone known as the “Daemon Slayer”. In the time it takes her to actually get to the continent, she only discovers two things: the ‘Slayer’ is female and _terrifyingly insane_. It sounds like something right up Aranea’s ally, to be honest. Insane or not, she has to be better than following fucking Ardyn around, or putting up with Ravus, or, well, dealing with anybody in the Empire, really.

She parks her airship right outside Lestallum, but the lights of the city don’t work as well as they used to. She still has to fight her way through a horde of imps, which isn’t difficult so much as mind-numbingly tedious. At least Lestallum welcomes her with generosity and better food than she’s managed to get a hold of in months. It’s almost enough to get her to stick around for a while.

But only almost. She’s always had a spot of wanderlust, and she doesn’t see it going away simply for the promise of food.

While she’s eating, she asks the hunters around her if they know anything about this woman. It seems like _everybody_ does, and each person has a different story to relay in half-horrified, half-awed tones. Aranea doesn’t believe any of it until she’s finally given a name: Iris Amicitia. Little sister of the King’s Shield.

“Hey, are you looking for me?” a cheerful voice asks from behind her, and the area falls silent. One hunter damn near jumps out of his chair, and then tries to make himself as small as possible. Wuss.

When Aranea turns to look at Iris, she expects to find someone of similar size to Gladiolus. Instead she’s greeted by a tiny, _adorable_ girl who’s wearing the most obnoxiously pink dress Aranea has ever seen in her entire life. Like she’s trying to single-handedly fight back the darkness by being as bright as the sun herself.

“Something like that,” Aranea says. She eyes Iris for weapons, but she doesn’t appear to be carrying anything but a satchel that hangs by her waist. Curious. “Just checking out some rumors, trying to see if there’s anyone left that’s worth fighting with.”

Iris beams and leans toward Aranea with huge, innocent eyes. “And what do you think?”

Aranea takes her time mulling over her answer, considers the hunters’ reactions against the child in front of her. “I think I’ll have to see what you can do for myself.”

“Okay, but I’ll have to get Cor before we go out.” Iris puts her hands behind her back and toes the ground. There’s a mischievous little smile on her face, which suits her far more than the innocent act did. “He doesn’t like me going out alone with other people.”

Aranea snorts inelegantly and turns back to her meal. “Sounds like a responsible decision,” she says. “I’ll wait here.”

 

It barely takes an hour for Iris to return, dragging the Immortal along behind her. She’s changed into something more suited for hunting, dark pants and a tanktop with a hideous purple cactuar on it. Well, at least it’s not blindingly bright. Aranea will take whatever she can get.

“Aranea Highwind,” Cor says as a greeting when they come up to the table. He looks Aranea over, but not in the lascivious way men usually do. Of course, he _does_ know who she is, and her reputation precedes her. “You’re going to regret this.”

Aranea offers him a smile that isn’t even remotely entertained. “That’s a problem for the future. You ready to head out?”

Cor nods silently, but Iris responds with a cheerful “Yup!” and bounces on her feet. She chatters ceaselessly on their way out of the city, relaying information about the daemons in the area and a threat from Gladiolus in the same chipper tones. It’s cute. Aranea finds herself growing fond of Iris against her better judgement.

She drags the two of them out to her ship to check on Biggs and Wedge, who look _bored_ of all things. Once she’s sure the ship isn’t in any danger, she lets her temporary companions lead her to whatever danger is waiting for them.

She wishes she was surprised by the ice bombs and hobgoblins that crop up, but in this darkness the deamons seem to have lost whatever preferences they held before. Aranea readies her lance, preparing to jump, but Cor reaches out and tugs her to a halt.

“Iris should have this covered,” he explains, nodding as the girl pulls something out of her satchel. “She only needs us to watch her back for this.”

She can’t believe he’s been taking a teenage girl out into the daemon-infested wastes and then letting her do everything. But that’s not her concern right now. She keeps a sharp eye on Iris instead, waiting for her to leave herself wide open to attack like her brother, half-expecting a sword to appear in her hands. Not that the girl would be capable of accessing the Armiger. Even Aranea knows that.

Instead Iris tosses whatever’s in her hand, and the bright light that explodes when it hits the ground is blinding. Aranea’s eyes haven’t adjusted before she hears the first explosion, and she finds herself holding her breath.

“All done!” Iris calls a minute later, just in time for Aranea’s eyes to have adjusted. Aranea raises an eyebrow at the half-circle of destruction around Iris as the girl practically does a victory dance on top of the daemons’ corpses.

“All right,” Aranea says, grinning. “I think I can work with this.”

She’s not surprised to find that Cor’s smile is a bit smug.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the purple cactuar shirt is in honor of rhymeswithpi, who is the BEST internet spouse 8D

**Author's Note:**

> If ya'll have any suggestions for what this Iris can get up to, feel free to throw them at me. I can't promise I'll write them but I could do with more ideas. :D


End file.
